disclaimer or something

Saturday, November 10, 2012

So, we own two homes. That makes people hate me l, like I am some über rich jerk wad. But my mom owns 2.5 homes (one is a shared ownership with her mom) and my mom is a retired school teacher. Not exactly über rich.

Anyways, with that off my chest, we have home A a large (well small by a McMansion standpoint, below 2,000 sq foot) custom home in the forest at nearly 5,000 feet up. And all homes are "custom", no tract homes. Even my home-of-childhood, a very rustic ca in from 1926 is "custom built". But again I am getting wordy.

Home B is an "investment" in the Tracy home suburbs at a much lower and desert-like elevation. It is not much larger than 1,000 square feet and on a postage stamp sized lot. Seriously I could hear my husband go pee, and I was in the driveway.

We rent out home B but have crashed here for a few months to refurb it (the lawn was burnt brown desert dead) an to, well, be lazy. We move down some furnishings and have live here a few months.

I dunno where to live.

Home A has its pluses; roomy, feels like home, really pretty, better kitchen and bathroom, bigger yard, super close knit friendly community (even our meth addicts are generally very congenial), it gets all four seasons, has lots of outdoor fun activities, and has rather low crime. No gangs.

Home A sucks though. There are few amenities of civilization. We have fast food, sure, if you like Mc Donald's. we have restaurants if you like food from the grocer's freezer section. We have clothes shops if you like thrift stores. We have anything you need, if you want it used and rusty and overpriced for tourists visiting the "quaint" shops. We have a grocer if you like overpriced expired goods with a white trash style of cuisine. So basically you drove 45-60 minutes to get to stuff like Targer, Trader Joes, Home Depot, JC Penny's, Babies R Us etc. it kinda sucks.

Then add in deep fog. People common of fog and I pshaw them with "back on my day" one-upping stories. You know those yellow dashes on a road? Even been unable to see a dash ahead? The dash in front of you fading into gray?didn't think so. Add in rock slides, mud slides, and a 5,000 foot vertical drop and you almost have our roads in winter. Add in snow (and we don't salt the roads) and inexperienced drivers, 60 mph winds, and hairpin turns and voila, welcome to my commute.

You get cabin fever and if you are as blind as me, the bad weather means you do not drive. You are stuck at home. Suddenly a trip to the post office or crapy grocers is like fri king Disneyland.

Then home B has our favorite gym nearby. Seriously, I hate exercising but I actually want to at this gym. And who doesn't want to be healthy? And there is so much to do, so many places to go. Every day I go to "town" probably 3x a day. It's fun! And we do not get snow, fog, mudslides... And the roads are straight and flat. I don't get cabin fever.

But I hate the 110 degree summer heat and lack of seasons. I want to go outside but it is hot, and a teeny yard sucks. I see gang graffiti and encounter traffic jams. I have guns drawn in my front yard. I can't see the stars. The house isn't built too well, so you can hear the dog fart three rooms away. And with two large dogs, two cats, two adults, and a toddler...with one adult as a p/t SAHM and a hubby who works from home, it gets claustrophobic.

We have to spend a sh1t ton to move to house A and keep putting it off. I mean we stayed in house B for 3 months now for a reason, right? If we move to house A, we take a risk and cannot move again. Ever. No private schools or culture for my son. But yet there is nature and nice people and a nice home. If we stay in house B we have to get rid of house A in a not so kosher cool way.

I just dunno what to do. I do not want to make a mistake because it will be a life long mistake. It could be financially crappy too. But we are running out of time to decide.

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About Me

True story...in kindergarten, I rolled with a Harley driving biker gang that invaded and made a campground their territory, and I got to wear a pink bandana as my "colors". I was raised by hippy intellectual parents who were artists and watched PBS, leading me to believe a degree in sociology would make millions because there were sociologists on tv...I mean, movie stars are millionaires, right? And in college, I got to hold a real mummy's hand, so goths can suck it cause have they caressed the hand of a n Egyptian mummy, the ultimate dead?
Oh and I am a mom who is kinda "crunchy granola". I bathe, use bottled soap, give my kid soda, and use disposable diapers But yeah...I breastfeed, make my own organic baby food, and drive a freakin subaru.